Can't Let Go
by holdme4evr
Summary: She's torn between trust and deceit will she chose the one she's falling for or will she turn to the life she thought she had lost?...
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: (I'll make this short so you can read well I'll try lol but just wanted to say Hi! This is my first fan-fiction story I've ever written. It's an action/adventure novel all within a love story. Not some sappy romance though. I hope you like it! But it's okay if you don't. Please give me feedback by giving me some of your responses. Thanks a ton! Enjoy!)

**Prologue:** **(**sneak peak**)**

I am standing in an open field with a gun in my hand and my life on the line.

I knew my life was kind of messed up in a way, but it was going okay, well at least for a girl whose parents died and left her to fend for herself and her sister.

I thought I was finally getting over the toughest part in my life, but I guess I thought wrong.

I wanted to go on with a normal life; well as normal as my life could get that is. But now here I stand wondering when this nightmare will be over.

When will I finally be able to breathe again and let the tears pour and keep pouring because they've been locked up for way too long.

But at the moment I know I have to keep it together because even if I did shed one tear everything would be over, everything would be lost…

**Chapter 1:**

"You either obey us or pay the consequences of your disobedience."

We all knew what he meant; death

"You will be taught to firer a gun and hit your target with accuracy. You will then learn to combat with an opponent one on one and then we will add more as your performance improves. "

He walked in front of us as we stood in a line like the army did. The man was menacing and anyone wishing to come face to face with the devil, only had to look at him.

We had been taken from our families, from our lives and brought to an isolated island somewhere North of Canada, well maybe North of Canada, but no one was really sure. That's all we knew and that's all they were going to tell us.

They thought we were all special and that we all had certain hidden gifts that should be put to the test, so that we can become "better"; yeah right they just wanted us to help them take over some powerful company by using our "abilities".

Not happening as long as I could help it.

We were in the middle of a vacant field. The grass was green with a tint of light gold. Giving it an autumn look.

We were standing about 50 feet away from target practice sheets. We were each holding a .22 caliber handgun.

There were ten of us, all together. My younger sister, Tess, was among them. I didn't know any of the other kids, but I did know that we were all about the same age. sixteen or seventeen. I was seventeen and my sister was a year younger than me. We've always been pretty close.

The man was talking to one of his other men and we were all standing there waiting for his order to start shooting. The only reason we weren't running for our lives was that we all knew that if we ever did try to run they would shoot us down without even blinking. They would kill first and ask questions later.

Of course none of us knew how to hold a gun let alone fire one off. My sister looked over at me with fear in her eyes.

We had been here only two days, but it felt like forever.

My sister has blonde hair to her shoulders. With brown eyes that sparkled with hints of green when she was in the sun. She is only an inch shorter than me. I am 5'6. She is tan while I'm the complete opposite, pale as the moon. My sister takes after my dad, while I take after my mother. I have straight black hair and eyes the color of the sea, blue in the sun, green everywhere else. Tess and I have been playing soccer our whole lives, so we stay in shape.

All the guys drooled over Tess, while I didn't even get a glance. That's how it had always been. My friends told me I was pretty in an exotic way, but I never believed them. Tan and blonde was what most guys wanted right?

I tried to give her a reassuring glance, but I don't think I was helping much. I looked to my left and watched the other guys and girls having target practice. They were also our age, but I had heard from one of my roommates that they had been here almost an entire year.

One guy stood out from the rest. He had curly brown hair. He was probably at least six feet tall. His shooting pose made him look like he had shot a gun every day. Plus the muscles along his arm showed how strong he was. He was breathtaking.

"Stop drooling over him, Jade! You've been taken from your home and brought to god knows where. Start paying attention before they kill you." Now that was a reality check.

I tried to focus on how he held the gun, what position he was standing in. He got ready to take another shot and right before he fired it he turned his wrist a little to the right.

The bullet made a hole through the head of the human on the target sheet.

"Bull's Eye"

The next few shots hit right at the human drawing's heart. He was good, really good.

No one probably noticed that he jerked his wrist a fraction of an inch to the right, but I had.

The guy next to him slapped on the back, "nice work Seth."

Seth. Nice name.

I was suddenly jerked back from staring at "Seth" as the head guy began to shout his orders.

"All right get ready to shoot. When I say go begin until you run out of bullets. That means five shots." The scary man stood a few feet behind us. The other trainees, Seth and his buddy included, turned to watch us.

I was willing to try anything; at least I was going to try and not shoot someone's head off, especially with Tess only like ten feet away. Hopefully she wouldn't either. We all pointed our guns at our target sheets, not ready at all, but pretending to be.

"I'm counting down from three. Shoot when I say go."

"Three"

I stood with my right foot a little in front of my left, like the guy Seth had done.

"Two"

I leveled the gun so my hand and shoulder where level.

Just as he had done.

"One"

"Here goes nothing" I thought.

"Go!"

I jerked my wrist slightly to the right and fired the gun at the same time. I tried to aim for the drawing's heart. I pulled the trigger five times, each time doing as Seth had done.

Then everything around me was eerily silent.

The gun dropped from my hand and my eyes watched it drop to the ground.

"I can't believe I just did that, " I said to myself over and over again.

I dragged my gaze from where my gun was now laying and looked over at Tess, but Tess was staring at me, actually now that I looked around, everyone was staring at me.

"Oh my God! Did I shoot someone? Oh my God did I kill someone?" I couldn't seem to get the questions passed my throat and my lungs seemed to not be able to take in enough air.

Then the head of this "operation", I guess you could call it that, aka scary man, walked over and stood in front of me.

"Have you shot a gun before?"

I shook my head unable to speak.

"Never in your life?"

I shook my head again.

"Well then you have an extraordinary gift with a gun."

I jerked my gaze to his. He moved aside so he wasn't blocking my view from my target practice sheet.

That's when I saw the five bullet holes all in a half-inch of one another right where the drawing's heart should be.

"Oh my God." My voice was breathless and my hand went over my mouth.

"I…I just…" I didn't know what to say.

"That will be all for today. Let us all go back to the house. Dinner will be in half an hour.

The "house" he was talking about was indeed a house and a big one at that. It was a cottage, a farmhouse really. It was able to hold all 30 kids that they had taken. All the "frickin bastards, sergeants, the worse people ever", just a few names everyone called them behind their backs, stayed in a one story house right next to ours. It only took us five minutes to get back to the house. We walked through a path cut out from the woods that surrounded the house and practice field.

We still hadn't gotten the routine down, but we would sooner or later. Hopefully sooner, so none of the "drill sergeants", that's what me and Tess called them, would punish us for not following directions.

This was our second night, so we had about twenty minutes to clean up and get down to the dinning room for dinner, if I remembered correctly.

Tess and I headed to our room, which we shared with two other girls, that we had only met the day before. We still don't know why we were able to stay together and I wish Tess didn't have to go through any of this.

I had always been the strong one, never crying at anything. I didn't even cry when our parents died when we were fifteen. I'm not some cold-hearted, soulless person, I just know if I did ever cry I wouldn't be able to stop.

Twenty minutes later, the four of us, Tess, Lindsey, Hannah, and I walked into the dinning room. The dinning room looked like a cafeteria, but with cottage looking walls and rugs on the floor.

There was a cafeteria line filled with all different kinds of food including Italian, Russian, Chinese, American and many other cultures of food. They treated us like we were special and royalty one minute and like a piece of dirt the next. Lovely, not.

We each grabbed a plate and started down the line behind everyone else. I didn't really have an appetite after the gun shooting escapade, so I took a piece of cheese pizza on my plate, knowing I wasn't going to eat it, and followed Tess and the others to a table in the far corner.

There were about ten tables in the room, ample amount of space for everyone to get a seat. There was a loud buzz of talking; each table having a completely different conversation.

"So you've never shot a gun in your entire life, yet you hit the target like every time." Lindsey said as she started eating the huge helping of pasta on her plate.

I looked over at her," Umm yeah, I don't really know how I did it. And I probably will never do it again."

Hannah nodded, "Sort of like beginners luck."

I shrugged, "I guess."

Tess was vacantly looking around the room. Not touching her favorite food in the world, chicken lo-mien. I nudged her chair and pointed to her plate. "Eat something." Ever since our parents had died I had become the only mother figure in her life and even though she hated me for it sometimes, at the moment I think what she wanted most was her mother.

I think everyone in the entire room wanted their mom.

She looked over at me and gave a weak smile, but thankfully picked up her fork and started eating.

"Do you think they'll ever let us go? They said we were going to like become soldiers or something, but why would they want us to do that? I just want to go home." Lindsey sighed.

"Hey you're the girl who got the bull's eye like every time right?" I looked to my left to see a guy with sandy blonde hair and a goofy smile looking at me. He was wearing khaki shorts and a navy blue polo shirt. He had the bluest eyes I had ever seen. Something seemed familiar about him.

Then it clicked. He was Seth's friend. The one who had slapped on the shoulder and told Seth how perfect Seth's shooting had been.

"Umm yeah. Do you need something?" I hadn't wanted to stand out in my old life and I didn't want to stand out now.

"See that guy over there?" He pointed to a table towards my right and as I turned to where his finger pointed I collided gazes with Seth.

My heart sped up as he seemed to search my gaze for something, but I wasn't sure for what.

I quickly averted my gaze and turned back to the guy standing at my table.

I tried to sound casual, but it came out kind of breathless, hopefully no one noticed, that would be embarrassing, "Yeah, so?"

The guy smiled, white teeth dazzling. "He's gonna show you how a real guns' man shoots tomorrow. Better watch out." Aggh I so did not need this right now. How did I get into this mess? I just want to go home and not deal with this crap, but that wasn't a choice at the moment, so I wasn't just going to let them make a fool out of me as about half the room watched.

"Yeah well you can let him know, that he actually has to have a gun before he can even shoot it." And just because I was in a pissy mood; I turned to Seth staring right at him and pushed my tongue into my cheek, hoping he got the message.

Apparently he and everyone else in the room did. Everyone erupted in laughter, calling to Seth and his friend, "You just got served!"

For just a few minutes every one in the room was able to escape from the fate they were thrown into.

Then it came crashing down on them by the front door being thrown open and the head drill sergeant stormed in.

"Let's go! Get to your rooms, now!"

The whole room was shocked for about five seconds then chaos ignited. People were running into each other trying to get to the cafeteria exit and their rooms.

I grabbed Tess's hand and Lindsey and Hannah grabbed onto Tess's shirt. I was almost to the girl's exit door, there's a guys exit door and there's a girls they were very strict about that, when someone whispered in my ear.

"Touché." I looked up to see Seth jog past with his friend on his tail.

I was unable to keep a smile from reaching my lips, even though they were both total jerks.

We reached our room in record time and flopped down on our beds exhausted.

"Jade, that was so awesome what you said in there!" Tess said from the bunk bed beneath me.

"Yeah and what you did." Lindsey said mimicking me. We all burst out laughing.

After our fit of laughter a serious note came into my mind. "Okay, we should get some rest, we have to get up early."

Frowns crept on all our faces. "Yeah, wouldn't want to get Sarge angry."

Hannah stood up and started pulling stuff out of her duffle bag. "I can't believe that's his real name. I mean come on, Sarge? Can you get any closer to irony?"

We all nodded. "What I would give to see him get knocked off his high place." Hannah continued.

"Yeah, that would be number one on my wish list." Lindsey agreed.

With that they all started to get ready for bed. We weren't really treated as prisoner, our bedroom and clothes was part of the "treating us as royalty" part. They had packed all our clothes we owned in a duffle bag and put it in our rooms.

Our rooms were designed like dorm rooms. Two bunk beds on either side of the room. A twin sized mattress with sheets and a comforter on each. There was a small window in the middle wall, into between the two bunk beds. There was a closet on each side of the room too, but it was only big enough to fit one of us in there. A bathroom was toward the front of the room. A sink and shower, thank God.

The walls were white and the floor made of wood, but they had laid a rug to cover it. We would rather just have the wood floor because the carpet was a puke green, not pretty, if you get the picture.

We took turns in the bathroom and finally were showered and ready to go to sleep.

The lights were turned out and I lay there unable to sleep, wondering why, when Hannah spoke softly to me.

"Why do you think those two guys were making a big deal about the shooting thing?"

That had been what I was trying to figure out for the past hour, but came up with nothing.

"I don't know." I truly didn't. But tomorrow I was going to find out, because if I didn't it would make me go crazy. Which right now might be a good thing…


	2. Chapter 2

**(Authors Note: Hey thanks for reading chapter one. I hope you like chapter two! A lot happens in this chapter, just so you know. Please review. Tell me what you think. Thanks!!)**

Chapter Two

"Let's go get your asses out of bed! You have ten minutes to be outside this house!"

I bolted upright and barely missed hitting my head on the ceiling. Another day of fun…not. I groggily climbed down the ladder and grabbed a pair of black sweats and a grey t-shirt. I went to the bathroom and washed my face trying to wake myself up, it didn't help much.

After I changed into my clothes and went to wake Tess up who hadn't even heard the loud voice outside our door or the echoing of it down the hallway. Haley and Lindsey were also getting dressed into similar clothes. It was the end of October, and there was a chill in the air.

"Hey let's go we gotta be outside in like five minutes. Get up!" She opened her eyes to stare at me then slowly sat up.

"Okay, okay I'm going." She always did things at a slow pace, she was always contemplating everything instead of just doing them, but slow wasn't an option, not anymore.

I left her to get ready and went to the full-length mirror that was on the door of the closet. I usually just left my hair down because it was tame enough to stay flat, although that was kind of boring. I had gotten bangs two years ago, but had decided I didn't like them and they were now almost even with my regular length which was just past my shoulder blades.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail to keep it out of my face. I looked at the clock on the bedside table, it was 5:57, we had three minutes to get outside. I looked over to see how everyone else was doing; thankfully they were all ready to go.

"Go, go! Hurry!" Hannah said as I closed the door and we raced down the stairs to the living room, yeah there was a living room, and out the front door.

"Six o'clock is now the time. Luckily you all made it out in time." He gave a pointed glare in our direction. We all sighed in relief.

Fifteen of us stood in a row, while the fifteen other kids who had been here for about a year, scary right?, stood in a group to Sarge's left.

"Today we are trying something new. You are each going to have a personal trainer who will help you improve your skills as a gun's man, sword holder, and in combat situations. We have assigned you with one of our own protégés" from the first program, he pointed to where the group of fifteen stood together.

Not good, I didn't want to be separated from Tess or my new friends. It was the only way I had been able to get this far.

"When your trainer calls your name, step over and join him. Let's begin."

I was dreading my name being called, but also afraid for Tess wondering what would happen, she wasn't ready for any of this, she never was.

Lindsey's name was called and she gave a frightened look towards Hannah, Tess, and I.

Next Hannah's name was called and she too, gave us s frightened glance.

The names continued down the list and soon the row dwindled down to Tess and I.

"Tess Carlisle." I recognized the guy instantly. It was Seth's friend from the night before. Could this get any worse?

"Jade Carlisle." Seth said my name and I froze, apparently my day could get worse.

"Jade?" Tess gave me a worried look. I gave her the only smile I could muster; it was barely a smile at all.

"It's okay. I'll see you later. If anything happens just kick'em and run got it?"

Tess nodded and walked toward her new trainer.

I looked down at my feet as I walked towards Seth, I wasn't going to look at him as long as I could help it.

"All right. Now that you all have your new recruits, you know your assignments and where to go. Begin their training."

With that everyone followed their trainer to either the gun practice field or to the combat space that had blue mats laid across the grass.

The air outside was a little chilly and the grey skies didn't help. It looked like it was going to rain and soon.

I followed Seth to the combat mats and waited for his command. I tried to see where Tess had gone, but couldn't seem to find her. I was already steaming from this whole ordeal and not being able to see Tess was just adding fuel to the fire.

I looked up and spotted Lindsey standing with her trainer on the mats across from mine. I gave her a quick smiled and she returned one. Both of them didn't reach our eyes.

"Okay so today we are going to learn hand to hand combat." I looked back towards Seth, not meeting his gaze.

He was handsome as ever in grey sweatpants and a navy blue t-shirt that hugged his upper-body quite nicely. His eyes were a light brown almost golden. His face was chiseled from pure stone. He was perfection in every form. A guy any girl could wish for.

"Stop Jade! What the hell are you doing? He's your enemy. Don't get under his spell."

I jerked my gaze from his face and pretended to be bored as I waited for him to continue.

"So I guess I should introduce myself since last night we kind of got off on the wrong foot."

I finally looked at him, not wanting him to think he had power over me.

"The wrong foot? I think it was more than that." I folded my arms across my chest in a defiant gesture.

"Okay, okay. My friend Mark likes to joke and he gets carried away sometimes. But all''s good right?"

He won't even apologize.

"Let's just get on with the lesson. He didn't say we had to like our trainers, thank God for that." His eyes changed from their light golden hue to a dark brown, interesting.

"Fine. I was just trying to be nice."

I stared at him. "I don't think nice is one of your strong points."

He brushed his hand through his hair and blew out a sigh.

"This is hand to hand combat, so let's see what you got." He started to move towards me.

"Wait whoa," I held up my right hand in a hold up gesture. "What do you mean, show me what you got? Like fight you?" He stopped coming towards me and said.

"Yeah." I shook my head, "But I don't know how to fight." Although I didn't know how to fight, jackass over here was definitely changing my mind.

"That's okay, self-defense comes naturally, just try to get away."

He weighed like a lot more than me, and his was all muscle. I didn't have a chance.

He started coming at me again before I could protest. He grabbed my arm and pinned my back against his chest. Not good! I didn't know what to do, but he started like he was going to choke me to death. I reacted on instinct and jabbed my elbow of my free arm into his ribs with all my might. Then turned and punched him in the gut. He didn't even flinch. Oh no! "Now would be a good time to start running!" I told myself. I sprinted across the mats, past Lindsey, and out into the open field. Luckily the gun range was facing the other way so I wouldn't get shot down or anything.

I looked back to see Seth right on my tail. Then I heard Sarge yelling at two other trainers to help Seth get me.

I didn't want to be here, I wanted this nightmare to end…now. I had always been fast and it had helped when playing soccer. Right now I used my ability to run fast and get away from three guys who were trying to get me. The field seemed to go on forever, so I turned to my right. Seth and I think Mark his friend were to my left.

The other trainer was probably 6'4 and 200 pounds of pure muscle that consumed him. Well it was either two against one or one against one; I went with the latter. I went straight at the guy and faked going right and went left. He reached out to grab me, but grabbed air instead.

My adrenaline was pumping through my veins, my heart was beating hard, and I felt a need to laugh at the absurdity of this situation. I continued to race back towards everyone else. I saw Sarge make a hand gesture and two more trainers joined the chase. I saw Seth out of the corner of my and three others coming at me from my right. The two new guys started coming at me to my left.

Oh no, what should I do? I looked to Seth hoping he wasn't going to tackle me like the other one's looked ready to do. We locked gazes and I guess he saw my plea, but I wasn't sure what he was going to do with it.

His features softened and I turned towards him and the two other guys with him. I was still running at top speed toward them, but it seemed to go in slow motion.

At the last possible second I turned to my right to head back into the vacant field, but some how Seth knew I was going to do that.

He didn't tackle me or try to take me down. He put both of his arms around me jolting me to a stop.

"Stop running. You're okay." His words were spoken with a gentleness that I didn't know existed in him.

I turned my head into his chest. "I wouldn't cry, I wouldn't." I told myself over and over again. I tried to step out of Seth's embrace, but he only let me go an arms length away.

"Well it seems you have another remarkable gift. You are very special Jade, you do know that don't you?" Sarge said as he walked to the group that was forming around Seth and I.

I didn't answer him. "Seth I want you to take her on the distance run." Something in Seth's face said the distance run wasn't going to be fun. Then again you kind of got that idea from its title.

"Now?" His voice was strained.

"Yes, now. I want to see how long she can run for. When you get back, you both can eat and take the rest of the day off."

He turned to the rest of the group, "Everyone get back to their stations. You have ten seconds!" With that everyone scattered, except me and Seth.

"Come on. It starts over here." He walked toward the outskirts of the woods behind the practice area.

"So what exactly are we doing?" I looked towards the forest where a path was cut out. The woods mainly consisted of pine trees and a few oak trees. Orange pine needles littered the floor. Roots and tree limbs were scattered across the dirt-covered ground.

"We're running until you can't go any more." He started to jog and I stood there unmoving. He turned back around and stared at me.

"You can't be serious?" He came back to where I stood and whispered in an exasperated voice, "Unless you would like to have the wrath of Sarge on your head, I suggest you start jogging." Without any other encouragement, I began jogging at a fast pace.

Seth jogged on my left side. The path curved in and out of the trees. A few minutes had passed before I spoke up, I never got out of breath when I ran, well I've never ran far enough to see if I could. He seemed to be able to breathe easy too.

I knew I shouldn't apologize for hitting him, but I couldn't help but do just that. "I'm sorry I hit you, I thought you were going to choke me and I kind of just reacted." It was a few minutes later when he answered, "It wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have just attacked you like that. I'm sorry." Wow, he was actually apologizing. Maybe he wasn't the guy I thought he was.

"Umm, thanks. So you've been here for almost a year." I said it as a statement, but hoping he would tell me more.

"Yeah, I was kidnapped from my parents when I turned seventeen, actually the day after my birthday." He gave a short humorless laugh. "Great birthday present right?"

At least he had parents that loved him and are probably still looking for him.

"Yeah, so what's it been like to be here so long?"

That question got him going on a whole lot of things. How in the beginning he didn't think he would be able to keep going. He even told me that after meeting Mark they tried to make a plan to escape, but it didn't work out and they were severely punished. Guess I could cross a plan to escape off my list of things to do.

It had been an hour and they were both still not out of breath. "Yeah and then one day Sarge was in a really good mood, so he let us have a competition to see who was best at each event."

I knew what was coming. "Let me guess, you won all the events?"

I looked over to see he had a cocky grin spreading across his face. You have got to be kidding me.

"You know you can't be good at everything, it's impossible."

His grin widened. "Actually I'm pretty sure I can be good at everything. I think it's something in my gene pool. I'm just naturally good at everything I do."

I rolled my eyes, "You are so damn sure of yourself. I can't wait to see you get beaten at something. Then maybe you'll realize how big a jerk you really are."

How can one guy be so cocky, it was amazing and pissed me off. I'll show him. Take him down a few notches.

"Okay fine. Since you think you can do anything and be the best at it, I'll race you. Where does this path lead?"

He contemplated my offer then said, "It leads back to the house."

I nodded, "I'm gonna cream your ass."

He looked over at me and held my gaze, "Oh no honey, all you'll be doing is staring at mine."

I looked anywhere but at him. "Okay, on the count of three."

We both stood side by side.

"One…Two…Three." On three we both took off at a full out sprint.

I didn't know how far away the house was, but at the moment I didn't really care. We were dead even and on the corner I decided to push my look. I sprinted even faster than I knew I could. I flew by him and didn't look back to see if he would catch up to me.

I rounded a corner only to stop dead as the world around me came crashing down. The scene before me was shocking.

The path did indeed lead back to the house, but the house was currently in flames. There were people running everywhere, shouting things that I couldn't hear because I was too far away. The front door was wide open and smoke was flowing from it. The fire was coming through the windows and had reached the roof.

Them a heart wrenching thought entered my mind. "Tess could be in there."

I started sprinting even faster heading towards the house. I was almost to the steps when someone tackled me from behind. I was knocked to the ground, the person pinning me to the floor. The breath whooshed out of my lungs.

Seth's voice rang in my ear. "Jade you can't go in there! It's too dangerous. We have to leave, now!" He pulled me up off the ground.

"No Tess might be in there I have to find her!" I tried to break his hold on my hand, but it wouldn't budge. The smoke was filling my lungs and it was getting harder to breathe, but I couldn't leave Tess.

"She's fine they have her. She's going to be okay." What was he talking about? Who had her? If Sarge had her how was she "going to be okay"?

"What are you talking about?" I had to scream over the sound of the fire as it continued to destroy the house.

"Jade I'm not who you think I am. I'm a double agent working for the FBI. The fire was made on purpose."

He was lying. He had to be.

"You're lying." He turned his back to me and started jogging pulling me with him.

That's when I saw men in bulletproof vests that had the initials "FBI" on them through the smoke. They were herding kids to helicopters in the vacant field to our left.

Oh holy shit. He was telling the truth. Oh my God Seth wasn't who he was supposed to be.

"Stop thinking about him and find Tess!" My mind screamed at me. There were seven helicopters in a row. I tried to see if Tess was getting into any of them. That's when I spotted Hannah.

Someone was helping her into the last helicopter on my right. Seth was pulling me to the left. I jerked his arm as hard as I could as I started racing towards Hannah.

Seth ran behind me, but yelled to me, "What are you doing? We have to get on a helicopter they're taking us out of here!" I reached the helicopter Hannah had disappeared into. I yelled her name and she spotted me.

"Jade! Come on!" She raced to me and held out her hand to lift me up. I shook my head, "Have you seen Tess?" Tears almost came to my eyes as she shook her head no.

I had to find her. I turned around to run to the next helicopter when Seth grabbed me around the waist.

"No Jade! We have to go now!" The helicopters were starting their engines. No, I couldn't lose her. She was the only family I had left.

"No Seth! I have to find her. Let me go!" I kicked his shin and his grip loosened. I sprinted to the next helicopter and screamed Tess's name. No reply came. I wouldn't stop until I found her. I ran to the next one and screamed her name as loud as I could.

"Tess! Tess! Answer me dammit!" I was close to tears as I ran to the next one and then the next one and still no reply came. No blonde hair; brown-eyed girl called back.

Out of nowhere someone grabbed me around the waist and I knew it wasn't Seth.

I turned my head and came face to face with Sarge. He looked pissed…beyond pissed.

Before I had time to react he threw me onto his shoulder and started running away from the helicopters.

I screamed, but no one heard me over the sound of the helicopter engines. I was dead. My gaze went to the first helicopter as Sarge continued to jog away from them. It was then that I collided gazes with Tess.

My heart gave a jolt at seeing her safe. At least she would have a future in head of her. I started pounding my fists against his back, but that didn't seem to do anything at all.

All of a sudden I saw a figure come flying at us from our right. The figure drew back his fist and smashed it into the side of Sarge's face.

His grip on me went lax and I fell to the ground hitting my shoulder on a rock stuck in the dirt. I rolled a few times before I finally stopped and laid there; afraid to open my eyes.

Someone touched my shoulder that had just been hit by a rock, it definitely was bruising.

I groaned and tried to sit up.

"Jade. Jade come on get up." Seth. Seth was here. I felt some of the fear I had, recede and in its place something I couldn't name, which scared me. But I didn't care at the moment, as long as he wouldn't leave me. I stood up and he did too. I couldn't help it; I threw my arms around his neck and buried my face in his chest.

"Hey, hey come on we gotta get out of here. Come on." He unwrapped my arms from his neck and took my hand. We were running across the now vacant fields. The helicopters had left us here. We were so dead.

Then I spotted Mark, Lindsey, and two other guys racing towards us. We met in the middle.

"Jade you're alive!" Lindsey said as she threw herself at me. I let go of Seth's hand and hugged her back.

We parted and waited for someone to speak up. The air around us was filled with smoke and as I looked around at everyone, all of our eyes were red. We needed to get out of this place and soon.

A wave of smoke rolled by us and we all started coughing. Seth spoke up, "We have to get out of here. Everyone follow me I know a cabin not far from here." No one questioned him.

But I had a ton of questions for him, especially about who he really was.

"Grab each other's hand. You can barely see through all this smoke." Mark called from Seth's side. I was still standing next to Seth and he reached out to take my hand, but I quickly grabbed Lindsey's hand and one of the other guy's hands. I didn't look at him; I didn't want to see his reaction no matter what it was.

We walked for at least half an hour and I was becoming exhausted. The run and then the fire had taken a toll on my body and my emotions; I was ready to collapse.

The smoke was no longer visible as we traveled farther away from the burnt down house.

We were in the woods now; we didn't have to hold hands anymore. We were traveling among the trees. I had probably tripped on at least a dozen tree roots before Seth and Mark finally stepped into a clearing about half a football field wide and long.

And in the middle of the clearing was a cabin. And it looked exactly like one from a catalogue. It was all wooden, with the logs as the walls and the three wooden steps that led to the door. There was a small porch with a bench on either side of it. It was a dark brown cabin with two windows that had green curtains covering them.

"How did you guys know it was here?" Lindsey asked as they all started walking towards it.

"Being here for almost a year, you kind of get the lay of the land, if you get what I mean." Mark said with a smirk.

No way would Sarge ever let them go off into the woods alone. There was something Seth and Mark weren't telling us and I planned to find out what it was.

We walked up the steps and filed into the cabin. It was homey. The front door led to the living room that had a couch against the far wall and two recliner chairs to the left.

I was too tired to make a more thorough search of the place, but there was a long hallway. The first left led you to the kitchen and as I continued down the hallway there was a door to my right. I opened it to find a bedroom with two queen sized beds. I went to the next door on my left, passed the kitchen, and opened it. This one was similar to the first, two queen sized beds. There was a second door on the right side and it was an exact replica of the two bedrooms before it.

The last door ended the hallway and I opened it to find a bathroom complete with a big shower and sink. Although the shower was appealing, the beds won out. I went to the last bedroom on the right and plopped down on the first bed.

Lindsey came in a second later. "Now this is heavenly." She said as she too, laid down on the next bed.

"You can say that again." With that my eyes drifted closed. Darkness consumed me.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

**(Author's Note: Hey hope you guys are liking my story so far! Please keep reading it gets better and better lol well that's what some people say… I'm working on chapter four rite now, im almost finished so please review and tell me if you like it or not…Thanks!!)**

Chapter Three

I woke to the aroma of eggs, bacon, and my favorite thing in the whole world…hot chocolate. I even had it in the summer when it was like ninety-five degrees out. It was one of my quirks.

I opened my eyes and sat up. The day before came crashing down on me I almost couldn't breathe. I took a few steadying breaths to calm myself. How could this have happened? I looked over to see if Lindsey was still asleep, but her bed was empty.

I heard laughter coming from the kitchen and living room. Might as well go check it out.

I was about to open my door when I saw a glimpse of myself in the mirror above the clothes drawer. My hair was still in its ponytail, but it was sticking out in tangles all over the place. My face looked like I had smeared grey paint across it and my eyes were still a little pink.

Hoping no one was in the hallway, I quickly stepped out of the hallway and into the bathroom. Luckily no one saw me. I pulled my hair out of it's elastic and started coming my fingers through it. When that was finally done and my hair mostly untangled, I washed my face and dried it with a face cloth that was laid out on the side of the sink.

Now that I was semi-presentable I looked down at my clothes. My black sweats weren't so bad. They were my favorite pair because they cinched at the bottom. I hated the flare kind; I always have, but I always had to buy new sweat pants because I would get holes in the bottom of them.

My shirt wasn't so bad either, although it was wrinkled and had dirt stains all over it. Well there was nothing I could do about it. I opened the bathroom door and walked down the hallway. I turned into the kitchen and stopped at the seen before me.

Lindsey had syrup all over her nose and cheeks and Mark had it on his shirt and hair. Everyone was laughing their heads off.

Lindsey looked up from her fit of laughter and spotted me, "Hey Jade want some syrup?"

She burst into laughter again, which caused me to start laughing at her appearance.

My gaze turned to Seth who was chuckling at Mark and Lindsey from across the table.

"I think you two have had enough syrup for all of us." I smiled and walked over to where all the food was laid out, but was only searching for the hot chocolate. It wasn't on the counter. I frowned and turned back to the table where everyone sat. "Where's the hot chocolate?"

Lindsey spoke up, "Oh sorry Jade we already drank all of it. We tried to save you some, but it was just so good." I couldn't hide the frown on my face. Hot chocolate was the one thing that put a smile on my face amongst this whole mess, that was my life…. How pathetic was that?

"Here you can have my cup, I didn't really drink any of it." Seth held his cup out to me.

I was still mad at him for lying to me and being a jerk, but then again it was hot chocolate. I guess I kept on staring at it because he stood up and walked over to me and asked, "Can we talk?" I lifted my gaze to his. "Sure, I guess."

I followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room. We stood there unmoving. I looked down at my sock covered feet and waited for him to say something.

"What's wrong?" I jerked my head up to his face, still not looking into his eyes.

"Nothing, nothing's wrong, except for the fact that you won't tell me what the hell is going on and don't give me the I don't know what you're talking about speech because you're keeping something from me; I just don't know what it is."

Seth brushed his fingers through his hair, he seemed to do that whenever he was frustrated, and then sighed. He opened his mouth to say something, but Mark's voice came from the kitchen, cutting him off.

"Yo Seth, Jade. Bryan has a great idea. Get in here."

I turned around and headed back into the kitchen, not waiting to see if Seth wasn't done talking to me. I walked over and stood next to Lindsey who was wiping all the syrup with a paper towel off her face.

"Okay," Mark said as soon as Seth leaned in the doorway. "Bryan reminded me of that town a couple miles from here. You remember it Seth. So Bryan thought since we just used up like all the food in the house, that we would go into town and raid the stores. No one's there anymore so what's to stop us?"

I thought it was a good idea and from all the nodding coming from everyone they thought it was a good idea too.

"We don't all have to go. Three people should be enough. So who wants to go?"

No one spoke right away, but then Lindsey chimed in. "I'll go." Mark nodded, "I'll go too."

Aaron spoke up, "I think I'll just stay here." "Me too." Said Bryan. Mark nodded again, "Okay one more person." Well I didn't really want to walk all the way to town, how ever far that was, I was still exhausted from everything that had happened.

Thank God Bryan and Aaron wanted to stay that way Seth and I would be split up.

"Yeah, I'm going to stay here too." I said. "Okay then. Seth, looks like you're going too." Mark said and then turned to Lindsey, "We'll leave in ten minutes. It's getting cold out so bring a jacket."

Everyone went to get ready or they went and sat in the living room. It was ten minutes later when they were heading towards the door to leave.

"We'll be back in a few hours, maybe four. See you guys later."

Mark said as they walked out the door and then disappeared in amongst the trees. Seth tried to catch my eyes as he walked backwards out the door, but I looked away before I could see anything in them.

Bryan the taller of the two with light brown hair that was cut short sat down on one of the living room chairs and picked up a New York Times magazine, but he wouldn't get much news out of it. It was years old. Aaron walked back into the kitchen and sat down on a stool at the island, I took the one across from him.

Aaron was the contrast of Bryan. He had dark brown hair with brown eyes that seemed to encompass his entire face. He had freckles scattered across his cheeks. He was cute in a childish way.

"I hope they find some food because I'm starving." Aaron said as he looked at the empty plates now in the sink.

"We just ate." I said chuckling. "Yeah, it's one of my flaws. My mom says that if I ever entered the hot dog eating contest I would definitely win."

I laughed. "They'll probably find something. So do you know anything about the people who took us?" Aaron had been in the one-year program, a civilized name for it, I was hoping he would know something; anything.

"A little. Only what I've over heard from others." I nodded encouraging him to continue.

"I guess the whole project, that's what they called it, started when a man named John Hollands was trying to destroy a huge business company that was trying to overthrow the government. His methods weren't working and so they tried something new. The new idea was us. We would help destroy the company."

I was still confused about John Hollands. "So why did John Hollands disappear?" Aaron looked me straight in the eyes. "Because he's the one who came up with the new idea. But he didn't want to carry it out because he just found out he had his own kid."

He leaned closer to me and I moved my head towards him because he was now whispering.

"Rumors say that the people he worked for were going to turn John Hollands son into one of the fighters to destroy the company to see if it would even work. If it was possible to train a kid to fight and shoot and stuff."

"That's why he left, but no one knows where he went. He just disappeared and the crazy thing is, from what I heard, John Hollands son was in the one-year program. They supposedly kidnapped him from John Hollands and that's how the whole project started."

Wow. I slumped back in my chair and Aaron did the same. I was shocked. What was the world coming to? Some people in this world were beyond crazy. John Hollands sounded like a good man. At least he left when things started to get ugly and wrong.

"But that's just a story I've heard from other people in the one-year program. And plus Seth and Mark said that it was totally bogus and that I shouldn't believe that kind of shit."

I looked towards Aaron. "Seth and Mark?" Aaron nodded. "Yeah. They were sitting at one of the dinner tables with Bryan, me, and a bunch of other guys. One of the guys, Mike or something started telling us the same story I just told you and when he finished Seth and Mark started arguing with him and then everyone took sides. It was kind of stupid. But you know how guys can get."

I laughed. He was trying to lighten the mood and I was grateful for that. "Yeah. Luckily not all guys are like that."

We continued to talk for an hour about all that we knew. Which was basically Aaron telling me everything while I listened.

Bryan came in a few minutes later and joined in. It was three o' clock when I noticed how cold it was in the whole cabin. I was shivering and even Bryan and Aaron had goose bumps along their arms.

I waited for a lapse in our conversation and then asked. "Hey, do you guys want to go get some firewood? It's getting chilly in here and there isn't a heater."

They both nodded. "Yeah I think there's an axe on the side of the cabin." Bryan said as we headed out the door.

"These are just little pines there's probably some bigger one's farther in the forest."

Aaron said as he grabbed the axe that was indeed lying against the side of the cabin.

We were about a half a mile in and we still couldn't find any trees that would be good for a fire.

"I think it would be easier if we split up. We can just meet back here if we find anything." We were standing in a small clearing.

"Okay we can meet back here in ten minutes." Bryan said. We split up. I headed to my right. I brushed back pine tree branches that got in my way.

I didn't have a jacket on because everything I owned was in the house that was now probably burned down.

I rubbed my hands together, hoping to warm then. I kept on walking searching for any trees that would burn easily.

I finally came across a birch tree. I turned around to head back to the clearing, but when I looked back I couldn't remember which way I had gone.

"Oh no!" Calm down Jade. The last thing you want to do is panic. I started walking to my left, but all I could see were trees and more trees.

Maybe Aaron or Bryan were close I'll just yell and see if they hear me.

"Aaron! Bryan! Can you hear me!? "

I waited for someone to yell back. But no one replied.

I couldn't be lost. Just keep walking, no wait that's the one thing you shouldn't do. Dear lord! I just wanted to go home!

I walked back to the birch tree, sat down, and leaned back against it. I was most definitely lost and it was getting dark.

I closed my eyes. I wasn't going to cry that's the one thing I wouldn't allow myself to do.

It must have been an hour with me just sitting in the middle of the woods getting colder and colder by the minute.

I wanted someone to find me. Because if they didn't…

For some reason I started thinking about Seth about the time when he saved me from Sarge and then the time when he saved me from getting tackled to the ground by all those guys. He seemed to be my guardian angel, yet would he be able to save me now?

"My whole life is full of lies." Seth Holland thought to himself as he walked through the trees back to the cabin, with Mark and Lindsey in front of him. They were each holding two bags full of food and water. They weren't sure how long they would be stuck here so they had grabbed as much as they could. "And the only thing I'm worried about is some stupid girl."

"I shouldn't even be thinking about Jade I had bigger problems to think about, like finding my father."

"God! I just can't stop thinking about her. She was beautiful in a unique way and had a personality that caught on fire quickly."

He was just about to tell himself to shut up, but luckily he was interrupted by Aaron and Bryan racing towards them from the cabin.

"Thank God you guys are back!" They slid to stop in front of us.

"Why what's wrong?" Mark asked.

"Where's Jade?" Seth thought to himself.

"We went out to get some fire wood cause it was getting pretty cold in there." Bryan said as he pointed back at the cabin.

"And Jade came with us to help. And we were all looking for firewood and then and then we lost her!" Aaron said in a panicked voice.

For some reason Seth couldn't breathe. The thought of Jade being lost and scared was tearing him apart and he didn't know why. He stood frozen for a few seconds then finally broke from the trance he was in.

"Where did you guys last see her?" Mark asked them.

"Over there. Somewhere in those trees. I swear to God we looked for at least two hours!" Aaron said as Mark and Seth ran towards where he had pointed.

"Help Lindsey with the bags of food, we'll find her." Seth yelled back to them as they entered the dense forest.

"I'll go this way. You head over to the right." Seth said to Mark.

Mark looked over and must have seen something in Seth's eyes because he said, "We'll find her Seth. We will."

With that they took off in opposite directions, hoping praying that Mark's words were the truth.

One minute I was thinking about Seth and the next I was I thrust into some one else's vision. It was a blurry vision of someone running through a forest. In the next instant everything became much clearer and I knew who's vision I was looking through.

The forest was all around him as Seth continued to run, looking every which way and then I was suddenly back sitting against a tree; my entire body shaking.

I didn't know why I was able to see through his eyes. I was just thinking about him and then all of a sudden I was seeing through him.

It took me a few minutes to finally contemplate that they were probably looking for me.

Seth was coming! A wave of relief sweppted through me, but then came crashing back as I realized that he might not be able to find me.

My eyes were closing, without any help. I was drifting into darkness.

"No, Jade open your eyes! You have to stay awake."

I tried one last attempt to scream for help, but it never left my lips.

As the darkness consumed me, I heard a faint whisper. It was probably just the wind, but perhaps it wasn't.

"Jade!"

Seth found her huddled against a tree. Her lips the color of a violet flower. She was only wearing what she had on the day before. A t-shirt and sweatpants. She looked so pale. She must have hypothermia.

I yelled to see if Mark was any where close, "Mark, over here I found her!"

A few seconds later Mark came to a running stop next to me.

"Oh God she looks dead."

I shook my head, "No she's still breathing, but she probably has hypothermia we have to get her back to the cabin."

I picked her up her head nestling in between my chin and shoulder. Her legs laying across my other arm that wasn't holding her back. She was light in my arms and we walked quickly back towards the cabin.

"Wow, if we hadn't found her…." Mark let the rest of the sentence hang in the air as we trudged up the cabin steps.

"Yeah, it was a close call." I said as I laid her down on the bed she had slept in last night.

In my mind I added, "Way too close."

Mark followed me into the room and helped me get her shoes off, "Seth she's still shivering way too much."

Yeah, Seth knew that and if she warmed up too fast her heart could stop. Seth also knew the answer on how to fix it.

Just then Jade opened her eyes. And they locked gazes. I bent down and whispered in her ear.

"Hey, you're going to be okay, alright? I promise. But you have hypothermia and if you warm up too fast it wouldn't be good so I have to use my body heat. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

I locked gazes with her again and after a moment she nodded.

"I'm gonna go get some blankets." Mark said not hearing the conversation Seth had just had with her.

Seth nodded and Mark left.

I stripped down to my boxers and then pushed Jade over on the bed so I could lay next to her. She looked away, her cheeks red.

I wrapped my arms around her so that her back was to my chest. She was freezing!

"Jesus, you're cold!" I whispered in her ear.

She gave a soft chuckle. "No kidding."

We were silent for a few minutes then Jade's voice filled the room.

"Seth?" She kept her head turned away from me.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Thank you."

Jade had put a spell on him and he didn't know how to get rid of it. But then again he didn't know if he wanted too.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: ( Hey sorry it's been so long! Life's been a little hectic with school and soccer, but I'm finally uploading chapter 4! Hope you like them! The rest of chapter five and chapter 6 will hopefully be up by the weekend. Thanks for reviewing! Plz continue to do so, I wanna know what you think! Thanks so much! Oh and if you have any suggestions about a song or any songs that would go well with my story please let me know! Thanks!! :) )Chapter Four

I woke to the feeling of being overheated. A faint light was seeping in through the curtains of the only window against the far wall. I looked over at the alarm clock standing on the bedside table that separated the two beds. It was twelve o' clock in the afternoon.

I sat up and pulled the covers off of me. There were more here than there had been yesterday. That's odd…Then the memories from yesterday began flooding my mind.

Going to get firewood. Getting lost. Feeling helpless and alone. Seth.

Oh God, Seth!

I jerked my gaze to my left, but the space beside me was empty.

I don't think I would know what to do if he was still here. He kept on saving my life and well… well not being a jerk. And I couldn't handle him not being a jerk because for some reason I just didn't know what I felt when I was around him.

I needed time to think.

He was still keeping secrets from me and I hated him for that, yet he was still always there to save the day.

Speaking of secrets… what Aaron had said before I got myself lost… John Hollands was a mystery and I hated mysteries. I liked everything to be uncomplicated…hence the fact of Seth.

John Hollands had disappeared, but he could still be alive; somewhere in the world. He could…

I was suddenly thrust into someone else's vision again and this time it wasn't Seth's.

The person was looking through bars of a prison cell. It was eerily dark, yet the person could see the three men in business suites that faced his cell.

The man closest to the person I was seeing through stepped forward and said, "Mr. Hollands this is your last chance to tell us where your son is. Seth Hollands has information that we most desperately need to acquire, so we would advise you to speak up now before someone gets hurt."

The man's vision I was looking through began to flicker and before everything went dark, I heard him say, "Leave my son alone!"

I opened my eyes and found myself back in my room in the small cabin.

"It couldn't be true! But it had to be. Seth was the son of John Hollands!" I thought to myself.

"Oh my God…" I whispered into the empty room.

What should I do? I could confront him, but how would he react? Seth had been keeping something from me and now I knew what it was. Mark probably knew too. They were close friends.

Maybe I could talk to him… no he would never betray Seth.

I was still trying to figure out what to do when Lindsey opened the door to our room.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" She said as she came to sit beside me on my bed.

"Hi, okay. A little exhausted, but I should be fine once I'm up and fully awake."

I was actually fully awake and trying to figure out not only Seth, but what was happening to me and why I was having these weird vision things. One thing I did know was that the visions I was having were true and happening.

"I'm so glad you're okay. I was so worried when Aaron and Bryan told us what had happened. Thank God Seth and Mark were able to find you."

I nodded. "Yeah, I still haven't thanked Mark I should go do that. What is everyone doing right now?" I asked as I got out of bed and went to look at my appearance in the mirror above the dresser.

"Actually that's what I came in here to tell you."

My hair wasn't too bad, but I put it into a low ponytail. The rest I couldn't really fix at the moment.

I nodded for Lindsey to continue.

"We were all thinking that we should try and find a way out of here. Well it was really Seth and Mark's idea. You know how Seth was a double agent or something?"

I jerked my gaze to her. I thought he would keep that a secret like everything else that he hid from us. I guess I was wrong.

"You know that he was working for the FBI? I asked her as I leaned up against the dresser to face her, as she sat on the end of my bed.

"Yeah, he told us this morning. You didn't know either?"

I shook my head, "Really? He was a double agent?" I didn't like to lie to her, but I couldn't tell her the truth until I figured everything out.

"Yeah, I was shocked, but there's something about him that's always secretive ya know. That's probably how he got the job."

Yeah he was secretive all right. And it needed to stop. If we were all going to get out of this hell-hole alive then we all had to be on the same page.

"But anyways, so the guys were thinking that we could go searching for the telephone satellites that the people put up all over this area. Mark said that all of them had helped put them up. So they were thinking that if we found one it might work and then be able to help us call for help or radio to someone."

Again with the Seth and Mark duo. They knew a lot and they were keeping it to themselves, but I was up for anything especially if it would help us get out of here.

"That sounds like a good idea. When are we going to go?" I asked as I slipped into my Nike sneakers.

"I was going to come and wake you up and then when you were ready to go we would head out."

I nodded and headed for the door. "Well I'm ready so let's go."

We went to the kitchen and Lindsey handed me a turkey sandwich. "Here we all already ate, but I made one for you."

I was starved! I ate it in about two whole minutes. After I finished my sandwich Lindsey followed me into the living room. All the guys were sitting on the couch and chairs or leaning against the wall.

"Jade! We are so sorry we lost you!" Aaron and Bryan said together as they jumped up from where they sat on the couch and rushed over to me.

"No guys don't be sorry. It wasn't your fault. I'm the one who had suggested going.

Don't blame yourselves. I'm just glad somebody found me in time. Speaking of which," I turned to where Mark leaned against the wall to my right near the front door.

"I want to thank you for finding me."

Mark shoved off the wall, "Don't thank me, Seth was the one who really found you and carried you all the way back to the cabin." Mark looked over to where Seth leaned against the wall to my left.

I turned to him a blush rising to my face. He had carried me all the way back to the cabin? I voiced the same question out loud to him. "You carried me all the way back here?"

Seth caught my eye and was about to say something out loud when Mark cut in like he usually did, "Yeah, thank God you're not fat."

Lindsey slapped his arm. "Mark, you don't have to be so blunt!"

Mark feigned, holding his arm, like Lindsey had actually hit him hard, when in reality she had barely touched him.

I chuckled and so did everyone else.

I turned back to Seth and held his gaze, "Well thank you for finding me, then carrying me all the way back here, and… and for everything else."

I had a perfect picture in my mind of Seth stripping down to his boxers and wrapping his arms around me. I began to blush even redder.

He gave a knowing smile, but I didn't look away.

"It was no problem. My pleasure to help out." Could he get anymore to the point without actually saying it?

"So Lindsey told me what you guys had in mind for a plan. So we should get going."

Everyone stood up and Mark handed a walkie talkie to Seth and then to Bryan.

"So we're pairing up to go look for them. Bryan and Aaron already know the area to the east. So they're going to head that way. So the rest of us just have to pair up." Mark said as we headed out the door onto the front yard.

"Okay. Umm Lindsey and I can…" Seth cut me off scoughing at us.

"No way. You two don't know the area at all. You already got lost once, I'm…I mean we don't want to go through that again. One of you will go with Mark and the other will go with me." He was going to say something else, but caught himself at the last second.

His voice held a note of defiance in it.

"Oh well, I guess I'll go with Mark then. If that's okay with you Jade?" I hid my anger for Lindsey ditching me to go with Mark.

"Yeah go ahead." With that everyone took off except for Seth and me.

I didn't want to just stand there and wait for it to get awkward so I started walking in a random direction heading straight in front of me.

"Jade wait!" Seth yelled after me.

I turned around not wanting to talk to him, afraid of what he would say about anything. About last night.

"What!?" I said it a little louder than I had meant it to be.

He stopped a few feet behind me. "You're going the wrong way." He said it in a low voice, emphasizing my yell.

"Oh, umm so which way are we supposed to be going?" I asked getting more embarrassed by the minute.

"This way." He pointed to our left. There was a small path that could barely fit one person through it before trees began poking your eye out. I let him walk ahead of me because I didn't have a clue where I was going, an example of just a second ago.

We were both silent as we trudged along. It must have been at least an hour before I was sick of the silence.

"So do you know where we're going?"

Seth answered my question without looking back.

"In a way, yeah. We're heading north. Right now we are about five miles from the house we all used to live in. Mark and I helped install one of the telephone satellites not far from it. So I'm hoping we're heading towards it."

He was gambling that it was there. Well he better be good at counting his cards because if he wasn't….

This was probably the only time I would get to talk to Seth alone. I wasn't going to confront him directly about his secrets, but I wanted to see what he said when I mentioned his father John Hollands.

"So I was talking with Aaron the day before, before I got… well you know, and he told me some gossip he heard when you guys were back in training camp. Gossip about John Hollands. Do you know anything about him?"

If I hadn't been looking down to not trip over every root in the entire forest I would have missed the slight falter in his steps, but I was and Seth definitely knew something.

"Not really. Just the rumors that some of the guys said back at the house."

He was lying straight to my face. Okay well not to my face, but you know what I mean.

"Oh, yeah Aaron said that John Hollands son was in the one-year program. Did you ever meet him?"

He kept right on walking not saying anything for a few minutes. Then he finally spoke up.

"I probably have, but it's not like I asked right out if the guy was John Hollands son. He's probably long gone by now. The helicopters probably took him back to the states."

Yeah that's what should have happened and then Seth would be safe, but no he had to come back and save me.

Why didn't he just leave me? I'm not worth much and he barely knows me.

I was still glad Tess was safe, although she was scared out of her mind without me. She's never been alone. Hopefully she was okay.

"Do you know what they did with all the kids who were taken back to the states?" I tried to hide the worry from my voice, but it didn't work.

Seth looked back and saw my face. He kept walking, but gave me a hopeful smile.

"They were taken back to their families. They were going to try and help them get back to a normal life. I'm sure Tess is fine."

How could she be fine? We didn't have a family to go back to. One foster home after another. Never being able to call them home. Tess and I had always been our own family and now we were torn apart.

"But Tess doesn't have a family to go back to. We're orphans Seth. We have been since we were three." I said on a breathless note, the air gone from being afraid Tess wasn't okay.

He stopped and came to stand in front of me.

"Jade listen to me your sister is going to be okay. Just remind yourself that at least she's not here. You would want her to be home with foster care parents than here right? I know how you both feel…" I cut him off and pushed passed him before he could see the tears forming in my eyes.

I couldn't cry. That was the one rule that I made myself abide by. You cry, you die.

Not literally, but if I did cry I would die inside because of everything that had happened in my life.

"Seth don't. Let's just keep going. The sooner we find that telephone satellite the sooner I get to go home and pretend like none of this ever happened."

The truth was I would never forget what happened. I would never forget this place. And I would never ever forget Seth.

Which scared the hell out of me because everything was screwed up. He acted like the sweetest guy, joking one minute and then the next the annoying jerk and mysterious guy.

"You'll never forget." I heard him whisper under his breath. I let it go as I continued to walk through the dense forest.

*****

She knew. She damn well knew and she was keeping it from me. Seth said to himself as they continued to walk through the vacant woods.

Jade walked in front of me unaware that I was trying to figure out how much she knew.

She just wanted to go home and back to what? To Tess? Her only family was Tess and she definitely didn't like foster care parents that much Seth knew.

How was he going to tell her that he was John Hollands son, the son of the man who came up with the idea that had destroyed so many kids lives?

I had to live with the thought of being an orphan to a father who was the man most hated by everyone, well if everyone knew what he had done.

I had to live with that guilt every frickin' day and Jade just shut him out like he didn't know what it felt like to be an orphan to not be loved by anyone.

At least she had Tess. I had no one and it sucked… a lot.

I wanted to confide in someone and had thought about telling Jade everything, the only person, for some reason, that I thought I could tell and not get beaten up or the feeling of rejection.

Then again Jade probably could beat me up….

For once in my life I wanted someone to believe in me that I wanted to make everything right. That someone would believe that I could change everything and make it better.

That I wasn't my father.

And I thought Jade was that person. But at the moment she kept on throwing me out.

Doing anything to show no emotion towards me.

The night I had held her in my arms, she felt so right there. And now I didn't know what was going through her head.

If she knew, then she was probably about ready to high tail it out of here. Get as far away from me as possible.

The crack of thunder over my head brought me back to reality as I realized how dark it had gotten.

Jade suddenly stopped as rain began pouring down in sheets all around us.

We needed to get to cover and soon.

I grabbed Jade's hand and we took off running.

*****

The one thing that scared me the most, since I was a child, was thunder storms. For some reason the loud noise scared the crap out of me. And at the moment that was what Seth and I were running through.

I also hated them because it was during a thunder storm when my life had changed forever.

I could barely see two steps in front of me; luckily Seth had grabbed my hand so I wouldn't get lost again.

The feel of his hand against mine sent warm shivers up my arm.

I felt safe with him near me. I didn't know how he could see through the rain, but he kept on running as if he knew where he was going.

Tree branches slapped at me. Roots continually tripped me, while Seth looked like he was gliding.

I looked like a complete clutst compared to him, not that I should be thinking about that at the moment.

Another loud bang as clouds collided made me run even faster almost even with Seth even though there was barely room for one of us.

We turned to our left and all of a sudden we were standing before a small inlet of rocks. It looked like a small cave. As big as a small dorm room.

We rushed into it and the sound of the rain was muffled, but the thunder continued to be loud as ever.

The ground was the same type of rock as the sides and roof. At least it was dry. Seth let go of my hand. I was reluctant to let him go. The thunder wasn't going to stop anytime soon.

Memories of my childhood right before my parents died flashed through my mind.

_A flash of lightning pierced light through the room._

_I woke to the sound of a car door closing._

_I got out of my bed and walked to the window that looked out onto our street._

_Two people were talking to each other._

"_Mommy and Daddy," I thought to myself._

_Another bolt of lightning came down in the distance; light was thrown all around us._

_Slamming of the car doors._

"_Mommy and Daddy are leaving." I thought to myself._

"_Why are they leaving, don't they love us?"_

_The car started._

_The car sped down the road. _

_At that moment I knew they were never coming back._

_A crack of thunder vibrated through the entire house cracking my heart in two as I watched my parents leave…_

_Forever._

"Jade?… Jade?"" I was jolted back to the present as I heard Seth's voice calling my name.

I turned away from him hoping he wouldn't notice the anguish on my face.

He came around to face me. And put his hands on either side of my face, forcing me to look at him.

His eyes were filled with worry. For me? Or for the storm outside?

They were as green as emeralds sparkling in the light. And all I wanted to do was to be consumed into them so I wouldn't have to think about anything. To get away from the sadness and heart wrenching pain of feeling alone.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He asked barely a whisper. I tried to step out of his embrace and started backing up as he followed my steps.

All of a sudden my back hit the cave wall. I was trapped.

"Don't shut me out Jade. Not this time. Let me in." As the words were uttered past his lips a crack of thunder filled the air and tears started streaming down my face.

"You don't know Seth. You don't know what I had to go through my entire life! You don't know what it feels like to be alone in the world as it crumbles around you. "

"You don't know…" The last was barely loud enough for him to hear.

I was breathing fast unable to calm down, as the memories of the life I had loved all came crashing down on me.

I was about to collapse to the ground when Seth wrapped his arms around me.

I threw myself into his embrace. Unable to hold the tears back, that were already flowing down my face.

"I do know Jade. You just never listened. You need to let go."

I shook my head still nestled against his chest. "I can't let go."

He picked me up and then sat down against the cave wall with me in his lap.

"Yes you can, you just need someone to catch you when you fall."

I drifted off to sleep in Seth's arms.

Hoping, praying that tomorrow he would still be there to catch me.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Hey! Wow its been forever sorry about that! But here's chapter five. Finally! And I'm hoping that I'll have chapters 6 and 7 up by this weekend and I mean it this time lol. So, hope you like this chapter. Please…Please review! Tell me what you think. Thanks so much!!Chapter Five

I woke to the feeling of being alone. Not the best feeling in the world when you just had the worst night of your life. My eyes shot open and I sat up to find myself still in the cave. I was sitting on the floor and Seth was no where to be seen.

My mind replayed image after image of the night before and suddenly it all seemed too real.

Maybe Seth had left for good. Who would want to be with me, especially after my melt down?

I got slowly to my feet. The sun was shining brightly down on the entrance to it.

The trees that surrounded it looked forlorn with missing leaves that had already died.

A sign of winter that was soon to come.

Seth wouldn't just leave me here right? He was probably just outside figuring out where we should be heading.

Yeah that's it he's just right outside. My mind tried to comfort the dread that was filling it.

I walked out into the bright light and shielded my eyes with my right hand until they finally adjusted.

But as they did they also took in the vacant scene before me.

Seth was no where to be found.

He really did leave. He left me here forever. I was going to die.

"Stop it Jade! Get a hold of yourself. Just because you broke the one rule you promised to keep doesn't mean you can now cry whenever you feel like it." I scolded myself.

But it was the one thing I wanted most to do.

My whole body started to shake as my life crashed before my eyes. I was stuck here.

Once again, abandoned and alone.

"Seth!" I yelled his name once, then again, "Seth!"

No reply came; only a heavy gust of wind.

Okay now I was starting to really freak out.

No, this is just a dream. You're just having a nightmare. You'll wake up soon.

I closed my eyes tightly and counted to ten.

Then opened them, but it was still the vacant scene that it had been before.

Wait. Seth. Oh my God Seth was walking through the trees into the small clearing.

He was walking towards me!

He wasn't just going to leave me all alone. He came back!

I raced towards him, so overwhelmed with the emotion of not feeling alone.

I jumped into his arms and he caught me around the waist.

He chuckled into my hair as I held him tightly, squeezing him as hard as I could. Making myself believe that he was real and he was here.

"Hey to you too." He said still chuckling.

Then I started to get angry. How dare he make me go through that!

I was already undone from my whole escapade last night. He should have stayed with me.

I pushed him away with both hands, but he barely moved.

"Don't ever do that again!" I pushed him a little harder, hoping he got the message that I was pissed. I didn't notice I had tears in my eyes until one slipped down my cheek.

"Hey, hey you're okay. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." He pulled me into his embrace again and I hugged him back.

"I thought you left and were just going to abandon me. Like everyone else does in my life."

He squeezed me harder. "I would never. I've never left you behind. And I'm not going to, ever."

His words sunk into my mind, but I knew in my heart that I couldn't trust him, not yet.

I stepped out of his embrace and wiped the tears from my face. I looked down at the ground and noticed a black backpack lying at our feet.

I looked towards Seth and asked, "What's in the back pack, when did you get it?"

He dropped his gaze to the back pack as he picked it up and then started walking towards the cave entrance.

"I went to get some supplies. There's a small cabin not far from here that I remembered from when I was here last. I thought you would still be asleep when I got back, but I guess I was wrong, I'm really sorry about that." He dropped the bag against the cave wall and pulled the walkie-talkie from the front pouch of it.

"It's not your fault, I shouldn't have overreacted like that. I can take care of myself." I shouldn't have to depend on him, I just couldn't take much more of this place let alone the feeling of being trapped here forever.

He jerked his gaze to mine and I backed up a few steps as I saw the fury consuming his eyes.

"You think you're fine on your own? You think you have everything in control? Yeah that's total bull shit Jade and you know it! What was last night? Because it definitely was something!"

How dare he! He had no right to accuse me of anything. I didn't need his help I didn't need anybody!

"Look here buddy, last night was nothing forget about it! I've been taken from my home, brought to the middle of freakin' nowhere and now I'm stuck here not knowing when we're going to be saved, if we ever are for that matter, so excuse me for having a moment of hysteria. I'm a girl for gods sake! So don't tell me…"

My rampage of screaming and poking a finger into his chest over and over again was interrupted by the static and then a voice coming from the walkie-talkie still in Seth's hand.

"Seth? Seth can you hear me? It's Brian."

He glared at me for a moment and then talked back into the radio.

"Yeah, Brian I can hear you. What's up?"

We waited in silence for Brian to reply. Seth continued to glare at me and I continued to glare right back.

"Okay good. So we found the telephone satellite. Do you know where you guys are? How far do you think you are from town?"

Seth unzipped the back pack and rummaged around in it for a moment before pulling out a folded up map.

He handed it to me and I grabbed it out of his hand.

"Hold on a second Brian."

To me he said, "Could you open it and find where town is?"

I gave him a nasty glance and then opened it. I wasn't so mad at him that I wouldn't find a way to finally leave this wretched place.

I looked for a few seconds at the many places located on the map, until finally resting my eyes on the location of the town. Which was right in the center of the map.

How convenient.

"Okay I found it. Now what?"

He came to stand be side me before talking back to Brian again.

"Hey Brian, what number is the telephone satellite?"

I started searching for numbers anywhere on the map. It was then that I noticed five bold numbers scattered in different areas on the map.

"This ones number two."

I pointed my index finger at the bold number two, which was high on the left side of the map.

"Got it." I said to Seth.

Seth looked at the map for a few seconds then pointed to a place that was right next to it.

"This is where we are right now."

Yes! We weren't far from it. Thank God. I was not going to be a willing participant if we had to walk for a whole day. I don't think anyone would be.

"Brian we're going to come to you guys. We aren't far from you, so we will probably be there in no more than an hour. Got that?"

I folded up the map and put it back in the backpack.

"Gottcha. See ya later."

Seth put that backpack over his shoulder and started walking into the woods to the right of the cave.

I followed after him. Hoping, praying that we would finally be leaving. Finally going home.

Yet in the back of mind, I was afraid to think that this whole mess was over.

*****

An hour later we stood in front of a small barn looking building. And next to it stood the telephone satellite. Brian and Aaron came out to greet us.

"Thank god you guys are here!" Aaron said as we stopped in front of the one story barn.

"We can't get the code to get the telephone to work." Brian said as he pointed to the satellite.

This wasn't good.

"No one gave you guys the code to any of them?" I asked as I started walking towards the red door that hopefully led to a bed or something that I could sit down on, anything would be great.

I opened the door and gave an exasperated sigh.

The inside was bare except for a table to my right that held a computer on it. Yet the computer look like it was ready to expired, if it hadn't already.

There was a brown couch thrown carelessly in the middle of the floor, which was grey cement.

I walked over to the couch and the flopped onto it.

I instantly began to relax and I closed my eyes and darkness came over me.

I heard everyone else moving towards the table with the computer.

"There's the keyboard, but you need a five digit code to unlock the telephone." Brian's voice carried to my ears as I continued to lie there, reveling in the comfort of something soft underneath me. The cave hadn't been comfortable at all, as you could guess.

"Shoot. This blows." I heard Aaron said. Then I heard someone's footsteps come towards the couch and the someone sat down towards my legs.

"How are you holding up?" I opened one eye to see Aaron looking at me, waiting for me to answer.

"Just peachy and how bout you? I think next year we should get kidnapped on a tropical island. At least then we would be warm." I joked to him. There was no heat in this little barn and it was getting colder and colder by the second.

He chuckled and I sat up to face him.

"Yeah, but then we wouldn't have very much food and I can't be without any food."

He smiled at him and held my hands out like I was weighing two things to see which was heavier.

"Food or heat. Food…" I put my left hand down almost hitting my knee, now that I was sitting cross-legged to face him.

"Heat…" I raised my right hand above my head.

"No way, food is much more important and plus I'll keep you warm, you don't need a tropical island to…"

Aaron was interrupted by Seth's voice calling him from across the room.

"Aaron get over here we need your help for a second."

I looked over to where Brian and Seth were standing, but only Brian seemed to be trying to figure out the code because Seth was staring at me with a strange look on his face.

A cross between regretful and angry.

"Sure coming." Aaron said and stood up to go over to them.

I locked gazes with Seth trying to figure what was going through his head, but soon looked away as my heart started to speed up from his penetrating stare.

I started to shiver and not just from the cold.

I stared down at the many holes in the couch, anything to stop thinking about Seth for a little while.

I was still mad at him for thinking he knew everything. That he knew me. He didn't. He was the one lying about himself, so he shouldn't be accusing me of anything.

"Here take this." I looked up as Seth tossed his sweatshirt into my lap.

"But, don't you need it?" Seth shook his head.

"No I'm fine. Put it on you'll be warmer." With that he walked away.

He confused me beyond what I was capable of understanding.

He makes me so angry, but then he goes and does something as sweet as that.

I needed to figure him out and soon. More importantly I needed to tell him that I knew who he really was. And that if we didn't get away from wherever we were soon, bad things were going to start happening…

*****

I knew the code. I knew a lot of things no one else knew about. I hated secrets, had hated them my entire life, yet here I was one huge secret in itself.

Seth continued to stare at the five blank spaces on the computer screen, waiting for him to type in the five numbers that might lead them out of this hellhole.

Something was stopping him from typing in those five simple numbers.

But he couldn't figure out why he didn't want to leave, not yet.

And he had a strong inkling it had something to do with the girl sitting on the couch across the room.

Brian and Aaron were trying to give the coordinates to Mark and Lindsey. They were apparently in the opposite direction from the telephone satellite.

"She didn't trust me, she didn't trust anyone for that matter. Maybe I should just tell her everything." He thought to himself.

"Don't even go there Seth. You know if you told her everything she would hate you forever."

But the truth was Seth wanted to believe that Jade would understand, that she would know he wasn't his father. That she wouldn't leave him behind.

"You know how that would turn out… Oh by the way Jade. I'm the son of the man who put you in this god forsaken place. I'm really sorry this all happened, it won't happen again. Yeah that's perfect." Seth's thoughts were filled with sarcasm.

He was angry at his father, at everyone who thought they owned the world. Why did his father have to come up with the stupid idea to use teenagers to get what adults wanted? Then he just disappeared into thin air.

And at the moment all Seth wanted was to find his father and get the answers he had been searching for. That was the reason he had become a double agent with the FBI. He came here on a lead that his father was supposedly hiding somewhere North of Canada.

But now he wasn't so sure.

Everything was going to hell and he was running out of ideas on how to fix it.

Seth looked to the bottom right corner of the computer screen and saw that it was seven o' clock at night.

The one light was a small desk lamp to the left of the computer.

What am I going to do?

Seth was brought out of his self contemplating by the sound of Brian's voice.

"Mark said they should be here sometime tomorrow. He said that they were pretty far away, so it will take them a day or so."

Seth got up out of the metal chair and stood up.

"We still don't know the code, so I guess we'll just have to keep trying to figure it out."

Aaron said from his spot on the couch next to Jade. He didn't like that one bit, they were sitting too close.

He walked over and squished in between the two of them.

Aaron moved over to his own cushion, but Jade stayed right where she was. Her whole right side was touching my left. From her shoulder to her thigh.

The warmth made every nerve ending on my body become hyper aware of her.

Wonder if she felt it too…

*****

My body was on fire from Seth's touch.

He was sitting too close, but I couldn't make myself move away.

He made me feel safe and I didn't ever want that feeling to go away.

Seth spoke up as I continued to look anywhere, but at his face.

"Then I guess we'll just have to stay here for now. I have some food in the pack I brought if any of you are hungry."

Aaron jumped up as Seth said the word food.

"Thank God! Brian and I ran out of our supply this morning." He walked over to where Brian was holding Seth's backpack.

"Toss me a granola bar please!" I said to them as they dumped out all the food onto the computer desk.

I was too tired to get up and get one myself. Pretty pathetic, huh.

Brian threw two at me. I only caught one while the other hit off the couch and landed on the floor.

I got up and picked it up, and walked back to the couch. I really wanted to just lie out on the couch, but Seth and Aaron were taking up two-thirds of the couch.

I decided to be brave and sat with my back to the arm of the couch and my legs across Seth's lap.

He looked startled for half a second, before I distracted him by tossing a granola bar to him.

Than he startled me by grabbing my right leg. I shot my gaze to his, he then smiled and said, "Thanks." Although I couldn't decide what he was saying thanks to.

I quickly looked away, hoping Seth wouldn't see the need to be comforted in my eyes.

I couldn't be weak, not like before. I had to stay strong. I had to figure everything out.

Brian took that moment to start telling some outrageous stories that had us laughing until tears ran down our faces.

We finally started drifting towards sleep, well more Brian and Aaron than Seth and I.

I was now curled into the corner of the couch, while Brian and Aaron were on the mats and blankets that they had set up before we arrived.

Seth was sitting as far away from me as possible on the opposite side of the couch. His eyes were closed with his head leaning back against the couch.

I stared at his face. Memorizing the stark planes and angles that were perfectly shaped. His eyelashes dark like his hair. His lips seemed strained like he was trying to think about something too hard.

That was probably my fault. He wasn't asleep. I knew that much.

He was ignoring me and I knew why. He didn't want to talk about all that I knew.

Well it was about time he started talking. He owed me that much.

"Seth?" I whispered into the silent air.

He didn't open his eyes. He just sat there like I hadn't said anything.

I stuck my right foot out and nudged his thigh.

"Seth? I know you're awake."

I turned to rest my back against the arm of the couch, how I had had been sitting earlier, waiting for him to acknowledge me.

He finally turned his head in my direction and then opened his eyes. They were a dark grey.

"What else do you know about me?" That was a loaded question and I wanted to tell him everything I knew, but I couldn't. Not until he told me first.

"You're the one with all the secrets. Why don't you do me a favor and tell me. Everything Seth. Not some crap you tell everyone else. The truth."

He gave a panged expression before holding my gaze again.

He gave a humorless laugh. "Where to start? Maybe when my dad left? Or how about the men who captured me and left me to die in this hell hole alone with no one. You don't know anything Jade.

You know when they first started this program I was the only one. The only frickin' kid whose life was gone. They finally started bringing other kids, but by then I was going crazy. I thought I was going to die. They tortured me Jade. They left me without food for days. They left me in a dark and small cell.

I felt like I was drowning in darkness and there was no way out. And you know the irony of it all is I always believed that my father would come and save me." He gave a weak smile.

"Betcha didn't know that did you? The new kids they brought to train were taught a different way they just added me on like I was nothing. Like all that I had already gone through hadn't happened.

Their teaching was the _nice_ way. No hitting or kicking the crap out of you because you messed up. All the kids were fed as much food as they wanted. They got the royal treatment because they thought I had been a failure. I pretended to be one too.

The FBI had no clue. They still don't they just know whatever I told them. I kept it from them because I thought my father would appear and save me. I kick myself everyday for thinking he would come. How stupid to believe your own father would come and save you right?"

I sat there staring in horror at what he was telling me. I had tears in my eyes, but held them back as he continued to talk.

"Then you showed up. The new recruits. By the time you guys showed up, I was going through everything in a daze. Shooting practice, combat, everything with one thought that kept me going. Revenge.

Revenge on the father that didn't care. The boss had told us, the one year recruits, to watch all of you in your first lesson. To see who would become helpful for them to destroy the company.

I turned to watch all of you, but then I noticed you with your straight jet black hair flowing in the breeze. You were looking at the girl to your left, your sister. Your eyes were filled with fear, but you put on a brave smile for your sister." He smiled at that with his eyes.

"The boss started counting down…"

I cut Seth off. "He started counting and then I was shooting. I was scared to death, but all I could think about was how you were shooting earlier. I did what you did. You pull the gun a little to your right, right before you shoot."

He sat up and nodded. "Yeah. No one has ever noticed before."

I crossed my legs to face him more fully. "I notice a lot of things other people don't. That and I see things other people don't." It was now or never to tell him about his father.

"For instance I saw your father. I couldn't see him clearly, it was kinda dark. There were three men with him and they wanted to know where you were. Your father, John Hollands, wouldn't tell them. They said you had information they needed."

"When…when did you see him?" Seth's voice was hoarse.

"That's the thing. I don't know what's wrong with me, but for some reason I get put into other people's visions. I know it sounds weird, but it just kind of happens. Like when I started thinking about you when I was lost in the woods. I started thinking about you and then I was looking through your eyes searching for me. I don't know how it happens, it just happens." I looked away hoping he didn't think I had gone crazy.

The next thing I knew he was sitting right next to me. He took my hands in his. "Don't look away. I'm the one you should hate. My father was the one that led you to end up here. It's my fault everything happened. If I had just gotten you on the plane, everything would be different. You would be home right…" He was trying to comfort me?

"No Seth don't you see I don't have a home to go to. I have Tess, but you have no one.

No one to love you. You shouldn't be trying to rationalize everything you did. Everything you went through, yet here you are. You're still here." Before I was mad at him because he wouldn't tell me anything, he kept everything to himself, but now I understood why.

He thought I would hate him; he thought I would leave.

"I had no idea, I'm sorry." I whispered to him. Tears spilling down my cheeks. I put my arms around him and hugged him.

For an instant he resisted. But then his arms were wrapped around me and my head was resting on his shoulder.

We stayed like that for hours or merely minutes I wasn't quite sure. But then he was pulling away and I let him go reluctantly.

"I know we still have to figure everything out, but tomorrow, okay?" Seth asked me.

I nodded giving him a small smile. He wiped the tears from my face with his thumb.

I stifled a yawn behind my hand. Just as he did the same. We both chuckled softly.

Then on a serious note he said, "I still haven't told you everything. There's more."

I nodded again, "I know. Tomorrow you can tell me whatever you haven't yet."

With that Seth rolled onto his side curled up on his side of the couch. I did the same with our feet almost touching.

The room grew eerily silent. I lie there trying to see through the patch of darkness consuming the room.

Suddenly I heard a noise to my right.

Oh God! What was that? Stop freaking out Jade it was probably just a mouse or a rat!

I tried to think about something else, but a moment later there was another scratching noise.

Okay now you can freak out. I jumped up, but then what was I going to do? Go ask mom and dad if I can sleep with them.

"You're not a little kid any more." I told myself.

Seth. Seth would protect me.

I walked over and gently shook him and whispered, "Seth are you still awake?"

He opened his eyes that I could barely see. He looked up at me and asked, "Yeah, why?"

This was embarrassing… "Umm, there was a noise and it's really stupid, but it's just…"

Before I continue to babble he grabbed my arm and said, "Come here."

The next thing I knew I was laying spoon fashion with Seth's arm holding me.

"You're safe." He said against my ear.

He held me tighter and I closed my eyes.

Seth's arms around me reminded me of another time we were like this.

It felt right, yet, as the warmth of Seth's body surrounded me, the thoughts of the coming days continued to grow in my mind… and in my heart.


End file.
